German-American Discourse on Politics and Culture

February 03, 2019

Historian Götz Aly's Speech on International Holocaust Remembrance Day

On January 27, 1945 the Red Army liberated the death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Since 2006, the date is recognized as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Several very moving speeches were held around Germany, including an address by historian Saul Friedländer to the Bundestag. But in my opinion, the best speech was delivered by historian Götz Aly to the Thuringia state assembly. Like other eastern states, Thuringia is a stronghold of the right-wing extremist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. And Aly takes aim at AfD party leaders in his strong speech. I'll just quote and translate some excerpts, but I urge any and all readers of German to read the entire speech.

Aly starts off the speech recognizing the significance of January 27:

Wir haben uns versammelt, um an den 27. Januar 1945

zu erinnern - den Tag der Befreiung des Konzentra-

tionslagers Auschwitz-Birkenau. Erst in der Nacht

zuvor hatten SS-Truppen das letzte der vier aus Er-

furt gelieferten Großkrematorien gesprengt; eines

war im Oktober 1944 bei einem Aufstand des „Sonder-

kommandos“ zur Leichenverbrennung zerstört, die

beiden anderen waren bereits im Dezember zerlegt

und Richtung Mauthausen verfrachtet worden. Dort,

am Rand der geplanten Alpenfestung, sollte unter

dem Codewort „Neu-Auschwitz“ ein gleichwertiges

Vernichtungslager entstehen. Bis Ende 1944 waren in

Auschwitz eine Million Menschen ermordet worden,

die allermeisten, weil sie Juden waren.

(We are gathered to remember January 27, 1945 - the day the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated. Just the night before, SS troops blew up the last of the four main crematoria that had been delivered from Erfurt; one had been destroyed in October 1944 during an uprising by the Sonderkommando tasked with burning the corpses; the other two had already been dismantled and shipped off to Mauthausen. There, on the periphery of the planned Alpine fortress, a new death camp - code name "New Auschiwitz" - was to be constructed. Up to the end of 1944 a million people were murdered at Auschwitz - the vast majority were Jews)

Alty then makes reference to a speech by Alexander Gauland, chaiman of the AfD, in which Gauland praised the performance of the Wehrmacht soldiers ("We are justified in being proud of their performance.")

Mit harter militärischer Gewalt mussten im Mai 1945

viele Zehnmillionen Deutsche dazu gezwungen werden,

ihr Werk des Hasses, der Zerstörung und Selbstzer-

störung zu beenden. Sie hatten Hitler gewählt, be-

jubelt oder geduldet und für ihn gekämpft. Insge-

samt mobilisierte die Wehrmacht von 1939 an 18 Mil-

lionen deutsche Männer - fast alle, die laufen

konnten -, um zerstörend, raubend und mordend über

Europa herzufallen: vom Nordkap bis zum Kaukasus,

von Marseille bis Leningrad. Weit überwiegend fühl-

ten sich die Landser als Herrenmenschen, zumal im

Osten Europas. Angetrieben hatte sie nazistische

Überzeugung, vaterländisches Pflichtgefühl, natio-

naler Dünkel, Abenteuerlust oder Gleichgültigkeit –

die Verrohung erzeugte die Art der Kriegsführung,

verstärkt von der begleitenden Propaganda vom „Un-

termenschen“.

("Only through hard military violence were tens of millions of German forced to put an end to their work of hate, of destruction, and self-destruction. They had voted for Hitler, cheered or tolerated him and fought for him. All told, the Wehrmacht in 1939 mobilized eighteen million German men - almost anyone who could walk - to carry out a campaign of destruction, robbery, and murder throughout Europe - from the North Cape to the Caucuses, from Marseille to Leningrad. The grunts considered themselves the Master Race, especially in Eastern Europe. They were driven by conviction in the Nazi cause, by patriotic duty, nationalistic arrogance, adventurism or indifference - the brutalization determined the conduct of war, intensified by the accompanying propaganda of Untermenschen - sub-humans.")

Aly then condemns Alexander Gauland for his "Bird Shit Speech" in which he called the Nazi era just a speck of Vogelschiss on 1,000 successful years of German history - citing Bach, Goethe and Thomas Mann. But Bach would have faded into total obscurity if he hadn't been rediscovered by the Jewish composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (erased from musical history by the Nazis), Goethe was a multi-culturalist, and Thomas Mann never gave up his American citizenship after the war.

Finally, Götz Aly pays tribute to the international armed forces that liberated the camps - and liberated the German people from themselves.

Am 19. Februar 1945 schworen die so vielen Nationen

angehörenden Überlebenden von Buchenwald, für eine

„Welt des Friedens und der Freiheit“ einzutreten.

Im Sinne des Schwurs von Buchenwald danken wir den

Millionen ausländischer Soldaten, unter ihnen - ge-

rade hier in Thüringen - den vielen Soldaten afro-

amerikanischer Herkunft: Sie befreiten die Gefange-

nen der Konzentrations- und Vernichtungslager, die

todgeweihten Zwangsarbeiter, die Insassen der Heil-

und Pflegeanstalten - und nicht zuletzt befreiten

sie die Deutschen von sich selbst.

("On February 19, 1945 the survivors of Buchenwald - who came from so many nations - swore an oath that they would advocate for a "world of peace and freedom." In the spirit of the oath of Buchenwald we give thanks to the millions of foreign soldiers, among them - even here in Thuringiz - the many soldiers of African-American descent. They liberated the concentration and death camps, the slave laborers condemned to die, the occupants of the nursing institutions - and, not least, they liberated the Germans from themselves.")